Sri Sri's address on Corruption

The big C of corruption can be countered by five more Cs!

The first is the sense of ‘connectedness’. A lack of connectedness or belongingness breeds corruption in society. Often you see people looking for connections in order to avoid corruption! Corruption is much more in urban areas because there is no community sense there. A sense of belongingness among people can root out corruption.

The second C is ‘courage’. A lack of self-esteem or confidence in one’s ability, fear or insecurity in a person makes one become more corrupt. He then tries to find his security only through money. But the more money he acquires, the more afraid and fearful he becomes because the money is not earned in a right manner.

The third is an understanding of ‘cosmology’ -- looking at one’s own life in the context of extended space and time. How long is your life? Only 80-100 years! Billions of years have passed since the creation. Our creation, scientists say, is 50 billion years old. Everything in this creation is recycled. The air we breathe is old, every cell and atom in our body is old, the oxygen and hydrogen is old! This will continue. Seeing life from a different perspective of space and time is what will deepen one’s vision about one’s life.

The fourth C is ‘care’ and ‘compassion’. Care and compassion in society can bring dedication. The sense of care and feeling that it doesn’t matter even if I don’t have; somebody needs this more.

The last C is a sense of ‘commitment’ — commitment to contribution. When a person has a commitment to a higher cause in life, it brings a shift from gaining to giving. In society, if everyone keeps thinking, ‘What can I gain?’ rather than ‘What can I contribute’, then corruption cannot be rooted out. In society, we need to have this shift in our attitude, from ‘What can I gain?’ to ‘What can I contribute?’

But all this is not possible without spiritual upliftment and a sense of belongingness with the world. The globe has become a village. We have globalised everything but wisdom. This is one of the causes of terrorism and unrest. We accept food from every part of the world, music from every part of the world, but when it comes to wisdom, people seem to shy away.

Even if one pocket in the world remains ignorant of these shared values, the world will not be a safe place. We need to address these issues with a lot of patience. It is not a job that we can do overnight, but through education and creating that sense of community, through inspiration and example.